Features: February 2007

A Response and an Invitation by Casey Winfield Jones

Presbyterians and Conflict in Historical Perspective by James H. Moorhead

Bearing with One Another: The Pastoral Task in Times of Struggle by Sheldon Sorge

On Building Bridges by George Wirth

King’s Refusal and Ours by William Stacy Johnson

Inner Attitude by Conrad M. Rocha

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Inner Attitude

by Conrad M. Rocha

A sermon preached at First Presbyterian Church in Las Vegas, New Mexico, on July 15, 2001

Scripture text: Luke 10: 25-37

In today’s Gospel lesson, Luke relates the story of the lawyer who asked our Lord what he must do to inherit eternal life. Jesus in turn asked the lawyer, “What is written in the law?” The lawyer replied, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.” Perplexed, the lawyer asked, “But who is my neighbor?” Jesus replied by relating the parable of the Good Samaritan. In essence, Jesus replies by sharing a story in which one man, the Samaritan, shows compassion for one who is in need. The man who had been beset by robbers, beaten, bloodied and left to die had absolutely nothing “in common” with either the Samaritan, the priest or the Levite, who was by birth the keeper of the law.

The priest and the Levite, concerned with their own position in life, were not about to dirty their hands. They had more important things to do. The Samaritan, on the other hand, showed true compassion for his fellow human being. Thus, Jesus defines neighbor by explaining that all who are in need are our neighbors. All who need our compassion and our love are our neighbors. And, folks, the fact is that we are all in need of compassion. We are all in need of love from our brothers and sisters. We are all of God, from God, loved by God, and belong to God. Our neighbors are, therefore, all human beings.

The story illustrates, however, that when we narrow our definition of who we are, we also narrow the definition of who our neighbors are. In this parable, the priest and the Levite thought of themselves, esteemed themselves, as priest and keepers of the law. The Samaritan, on the other hand, thought of himself not primarily as a Samaritan of a certain class or station in life, but as a human being. Thus, to him the important thing was not that a Jew was in need of help, but that a man was in need of help. For Christians, therefore, the supremely important aspect about ourselves, the thing that deems us worthy of love and compassion, the important facet of who we are is our standing relative to God. That is, we recognize that God made us, that God judges us, that in Christ God suffered to redeem us. Whatever else may be true about us, about me, is this relationship with and to God.

Having recognized this standing and relationship to God, it is no longer important, nor should or can we ascribe significance to, racial, national, cultural, economic, denominational, or sexual orientation distinctions.

The fact is, God loves you and me no more than God loves any other human being. God’s concern, God’s compassion, and God’s love are extended to each person God created.

Yet, too often we human beings pigeonhole our humanity in limited and very inadequate terms. We ascribe significance to our position, our beliefs, our character, and, therefore, limit our ability to reach out to those outside that class. Many of us ascribe significance to and relate to fellow Protestants, while belittling non-Protestants as those folks who practice ritualistic and idolatrous worship of God. We thus regard them as undeserving of our love and compassion.

Too often, many of us relate to and reach out to those within our denomination who adhere to the understanding that the Bible as written is the unerring word of God; we, in turn, denounce those who see the Word as alive and subject to change through revelation, saying that they who see God’s Word as constantly being renewed and revealed are not being true to God and the Bible as written.

To often, many of us define ourselves as straight and condemn the homosexual as unworthy of God’s grace. If homosexuals are unworthy of God’s grace, then they are unworthy of leadership in our church because they have chosen a lifestyle that is condemned by God.

Each time we do these things, we forget that what binds us one to the other is not our religion, our theology, our color, our nationality, or our sexual orientation. Rather, what binds us one to the other is our relationship with the God who made us all, who loves us all, and who has compassion for us all.

As I read and reread this passage, a passage with which I was very familiar, having heard the story so many times, I was reminded of my own experience as the subject of a good Samaritan’s act of compassion and love.

Fifteen years ago, come this September, marks the anniversary of a near fatal incident in my life. It began innocently enough with my attending the opening night of the New Mexico state fair. As the fair began to shut down for the night and I proceeded to my car, a young man, clean cut and looking much like a college student, asked if I might give him a ride. I told him where I was headed and he said that would be great, I could drop him off at the corner of Central and Wyoming, as he was going in another direction beyond that. I said fine and we both got in the car.

I agreed to give this young man a ride because he appeared to be like me — a college student, clean cut, polite. He was, in my judgment, my “neighbor” and, therefore, deserving of my help. Needless to say, before we reached Central Avenue, he pulled out a knife and directed me to turn off the main road and stop about a block off Central. Before I knew it, I was lying on the ground, outside my car, bleeding from a wound to my chest. Only through God’s good grace was I able to crawl to Central and roll myself into the street gutter.

By then, it was well past midnight and nobody would help. Cars passed me by; pedestrians passed me by. I am sure they all figured I was just a drunk, passed out on the street. I was not worthy of their compassion or their assistance. All they saw, I am sure, was someone who was deservedly lying in the street. Like the priest and the Levite, these folks did not wish to bother with one whom they probably perceived not only as not being in their class, but not deserving of their compassion or help.

Thankfully, however, one man did come to my rescue. A biker with long hair and a beard, clad in dirty Levis and a leather jacket. He was an unlikely source of help, or so I thought. He tried to lift me onto his bike, but I began to bleed profusely from my wound, so he opted instead to leave to go get help.

As events unfolded, I was sure he probably would not return and that my fate and my fatality were surely sealed. Instead, some time later he returned, said he had called an ambulance and the police, and he waited with me until the ambulance and police arrived.

My situation was grave. On the way to the hospital I “flatlined.” At the hospital, the work to save me went into high gear. I still recall the nurse asking the attending physician what they should do with my bloodied clothes. The doctor’s reply was, “Save them, homicide will need them later.”

I was about to die. Obviously, I did not.

Later that morning, the biker returned to the hospital to follow up on my condition. This man, this biker, a man very different from me — or so I thought — was not obligated in the first place to help me and, having done his part, was certainly not obligated to inquire personally about my condition. Yet he did.

I learned many lessons that night. I saw God and God’s love revealed in many ways. But, the unexpected revelation was that the person whom I had agreed to help, who was, I thought, someone like myself — a college student, clean cut , well spoken, and, therefore, worthy of my assistance and my willingness to offer a helping hand — ended up being a robber and a man with evil intent. The person who helped me was none of those things. In fact, had he been the one who had sought a ride, I would have refused, believing him to be undeserving of my compassion. My concept of who was my brother, of who was my neighbor, of who should benefit from my assistance, of who was deserving of my compassion was completely set upside down that night.

That night I came to recognize that as a graduate of law school, as an employee of one of the largest accounting firms in the world, as a Christian, and as a Presbyterian, I had limited my world and my understanding of what it was to be a human being and, therefore, who my neighbors were and are.

And, my brothers and sisters, therein is the truth of today’s Gospel lesson. The subject of our love is and should be all humankind. The subjects of our love, the people who are our neighbors, are those in our world who are in need.

The subject of our love is and should be all God’s people. They, like we, are created by God. They, like we, are loved by God. They, like we, are the subject of God’s grace through Christ’s death and resurrection. So they are our neighbors, each of whom should be regarded with the same love we have for ourselves, the same love we profess to have for God, and the same love that God has for us.

Brothers and sisters, it is only when we determine what defines or makes or establishes our self worth that we can truly be the neighbors of which our Lord spoke. It is only when we recognize that our self worth does not flow from who we are — Christian, Jew, lawyer, priest, Anglo, Hispano, conservative, liberal, gay, or straight — but from our relationship with God. The God whose love flows to us and who, in return, should receive our love; the God who loves all whom God has created.

Once we establish in our minds and imprint upon our hearts the fact that what gives us worth is God’s love, then, and only then, will we realize that all of God’s people are our neighbors. We stand together, united in a single class — sinners, loved by God; sinners, the subject of God’s compassion; sinners, who, loved by God and subject to God’s compassion, must love one another and make others the subject of their compassion.

Our love of self is not, nor should it be, predicated on what group we belong to or of what class we are a part. It is and should be predicated on our understanding of our own self worth. God gave us the Christ because God deemed us worthy of the ultimate sacrifice of our Lord Jesus Christ. We love ourselves not because of any good qualities, or in spite of bad ones, but because we desire worth for ourselves. We should acknowledge our self worth because we recognize that God created us, and that all God made and makes is good. We love ourselves and, should therefore, love all humankind because God recognizes the worth of us all and loves us all.

That is the good news, sisters and brothers. God loves us all and so we should love one another — not as a duty, but as a response to an inner attitude and understanding of our own self worth. It is an inner attitude predicated on our recognition that God loves each of us no more, or no less, than any other human being.

Let us, therefore, resolve to love one another as we love ourselves — as God loves us. Let us resolve to recognize that every human being is our neighbor, not in spite of our differences, but because we acknowledge that, in God’s eyes, all humanity is really one. We are all the subject of God’s unfailing love.

Thanks be to God!

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